


The Fourth Time

by Rivermoon1970



Series: Time and Again [5]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, fear of your own mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:00:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2834021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivermoon1970/pseuds/Rivermoon1970
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer saved Nathan Harris from suicide, but his mind couldn't stop seeing the blood and it was his mind he was afraid of, so he turned to the only person who understood, Aaron Hotchner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fourth Time

_Now:_

Another knock at the door and another person from the team had come by. Spencer stopped caring. He knew he should get up, get off the couch, engage, but he just couldn’t. He knew they cared about him, he knew they loved him, but everything was so difficult. He didn’t want it to be real anymore, he wanted Aaron to walk through that door and he knew it wasn’t going to happen.

He was staring straight ahead when he felt the dip in the couch and arms come around him. The person hadn’t said anything, just held him. When he looked over he saw it was Alex.

“Alex,” Was all he said. She laid his head on her shoulder and let him cry. He wrapped an arm around her and held on. 

In the kitchen they heard Spencer and each of their hearts were breaking. No one knew what to say. It was finally JJ who broke the silence.

“What if he doesn’t come back from this. Morgan, what are we going to do?”

“Jayje, we just have to get him through it, just like we did with Maeve”.

“Derek, this is nothing like Maeve and you know it. He was in love with the idea of Maeve, the romance of the calls and the letters. They didn’t know each other that well. You know as well as I do that his heart only ever truly belonged to Aaron”.

“Yeah, I know. God, do you know I walked in, sort of, on the two of them?”

“Seriously? You never said anything”. Jason said.

“Yeah, It was after the train incident back in 2005, where he stupidly took off his vest and faced down that delusional unsub”. Morgan chuckled at how thoughtless, yet brave Reid was that day.

“I even threated to break every bone in Hotch’s body if he ever hurt Reid…” Morgan was trying to control his own feelings over losing his boss and friend.

“Morgan, come on, we all knew”.

Alex frowned looking at the pretty blonde. The years had been kind and Jennifer Jareau was still a beautiful woman, “JJ, what do you mean?”

“We all saw how they were ‘dancing’ around each other. Extra coffee trips, lunches together, room assignments mysteriously being changed, sitting close to each on the plane when they dared. Even I noticed and I wasn’t even a profiler yet”.

“And none of you were bothered?” Alex wanted to know, to understand how the two of them began.

“Why should we have been? Reid made him smile, and how often did Aaron smile?” JJ thought back to card games, mock arguments, deep philosophical discussions and hands gripped in shadow when they thought no one was looking. 

They heard another knock and Morgan broke away to go see who it was. When he opened the door he saw it was David Rossi.

“Dave,” The two friends embraced.

“How’s he doing?” Morgan just shook his head and led the other man into the kitchen where the others  
were gathered.

“So, how do we get him through this one?”

“I don’t know Rossi. We were just talking about how we all knew about them before they finally decided to tell us”. Morgan, smiled.

“Yeah, well they did try to hide it pretty well, but sometimes love has other ideas”.  
______________________________________________________________  
 _Then:_

_Gideon: Paramedics say he wouldn’t have made it without you. You saved his life._

_Reid: He wanted me to let him die._

_Gideon: He’s sick. He needed saving._

_Reid: And how many people’s lives did I risk in the future?_

_Gideon: Profiles can be wrong._

_Reid: What if it’s not? What if next time he kills somebody?_

_Gideon: Then you catch him_

He couldn’t get the image of the blood on his hands out of his head. He had washed them three times now, but it was still there, it wouldn’t go away, when will it go away? he thought. He couldn’t sleep because he kept seeing Nathan Harris’s blood on his hands. The kid had tried to kill himself because he was afraid, afraid of his own mind. Reid knew the feeling. His mind was always in constant motion and it was always so hard to shut it down. No one understood, not even Gideon. Actually, that’s not true, Aaron understood. He would sometimes steer Reid to a quiet corner and lay a hand on his shoulder and the thoughts, voices, equations, book quotes, movie scenes and whatever else was going on would stop. For that brief moment it would stop and he was always grateful, no yearned for those moments. Those moments that Aaron saw him struggle when no one else did. And it was Aaron that would understand. He didn’t know why, but he sent his unit chief a text and just wrote: _I can’t stop seeing the blood, what do I do?_ ”

It was close to three in the morning when Aaron’s phone pinged. He picked it up and looked down and saw Reid’s text and closed his eyes. He didn’t hesitate though. He quietly got up out of bed, pulled on some clothes and was out the door in less than 15 minutes. He didn’t want to wake Haley so he just left her a quick note. He knew he should feel guilty, but he didn’t. He was concerned for Spencer and wanted to help the young genius. He denied to himself what it actually was that he felt. Denied it to Spencer, denied it to Haley and most importantly denied it to himself. They had made a promise, don’t say the word. If they said it, then what they shared would become real and once real it could no longer be denied. So Aaron kept the word to himself, but kept it in his heart, kept Spencer in his heart. He knew that they couldn’t keep going on like this, that something was going to give, and soon. For tonight though he would give to Spencer, even if it was only for a short time.

What Aaron didn’t know was that Haley wasn’t asleep. The ping had woken her up, so she knew it wasn’t a case. With a case the phone rang and he acknowledged the other person on the line. This was just a ping and she knew. She’d known for a while. She wasn’t ready to confront Aaron, wasn’t ready for the fight, but she knew. When they had met in High School she suspected something different about Aaron, but she just chalked it up to his upbringing. She knew about his father and what Aaron went through. But, deep down she also knew Aaron wasn’t a hundred percent heterosexual. He talked to her about the time they had broken up during college and it didn’t bother her, he had come back to her and they had an amazing life. That is, until Aaron met _him_. She felt that she was losing Aaron a little at a time since then. She also understood what Aaron saw in his sometime lover, his brilliance, his compassion, his empathy and yes his beauty. The young man wasn’t classically handsome like Aaron, he was beautiful. Haley could see the attraction, but somehow she knew it was deeper than that. She didn’t want to say the word, if she said what she knew Aaron felt, it would shatter her heart. No, she wasn’t ready to confront Aaron, so she just curled in on herself and silently cried.

Aaron made it to Spencer’s fairly quickly, the streets being bare and the traffic lights co-operating. He parked, walked-in and used the key that Spencer had secretly given him a couple of months before. This time there was no hesitation. Aaron found Spencer curled-up on his bed silently crying. Aaron could almost see how much his lover’s mind was swirling and he didn’t need to be a genius to figure out Spencer was hurting. Aaron shed his clothes, laid down next to Spencer and pulled him in tight, holding him, kissing his neck and shoulders, caressing his side. With the kisses, the touches, Spencer felt himself slowly relax. Finally, here was the one person who understood. They didn’t need words, at least not in this early hour. Slowly they touched, tasted, caressed, taking each other silently and completely. The last shudders of his orgasm went through him as Aaron pulled from his body and he felt almost complete. After he cleaned up Aaron was back, pulling Spencer close and wrapping himself around the young genius. Still they hadn’t said a word and Aaron felt Spencer slowly and finally fall asleep. While his lover slept Aaron broke their rule, but it was okay Spencer was asleep, the older man whispered, so quietly almost silently, “I love you”.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry so short, but it felt right, hope you guys liked it. I know, I know (hands over tissue box)


End file.
